! why? [original emails enclosed: last post hopefully]

[brian-freebsd-01 at clapper.org]

On 25 March, 2004, at 14:20 (-0500)
__Clint__ <clint at acm.vt.edu> wrote:

> > You're not a victim of SPAM, you're an attention seeker. Go and look for
> > help with that issue on another list.
>
> Considering that in 10 yrs I have only ever received human replies to 3 or
> 4 "abuse@<domain>", but have probably sent 200 or so, this was decidedly
> not a ploy for attention.  I expected it to go to /dev/null, not some
> mailing list full of unix folks with their typical tiresome unix-culture
> attitudes (which usually include, but are not limited to: intellectual
> elitism, scapegoating, and blaming the user for 100% of bad things that
> happen to the user).
>
> And as for "Another list" - I never knew my original post was going to a
> list so it's not like i'm seeking attention by posting to a list.  Had I
> known it was a list my email would have been phrased differently or, more
> than likely, I would have simply not sent it.

...

> I still don't believe for a second that this is due to me posting on any
> public mail list.  FreeBSD's mail servers and/or lists of email addresses
> were somehow comprimised.

Geez, give it rest, will you? You're trying so hard to find someone to
blame for this problem that you're ignoring some basic facts--facts that
have been pointed out to you several times.

Here, I'll point them out again.

1. Back in February, 2002, you submitted a problem report. Problem reports
   end up going to the "freebsd-bugs" mailing list. Here are two archived
   versions of the message that ended up on that mailing list:

http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/getmsg.cgi?fetch=306876+0+archive/2002/freebsd-bugs/20020224.freebsd-bugs
http://www.geocrawler.com/archives/3/145/2002/2/250/7871040/

2. As a previous respondent pointed out to you, there's are several Usenet
   newsgroups that are fed from the freebsd-bugs mailing list. Without
   looking very hard, I found three: fa.freebsd.bugs,
   sol.lists.freebsd.bugs, mailing.freebsd.bugs. As was also mentioned to
   you, try plugging your address into the search box at groups.google.com.
   Here's one such instance of your message, as it appeared on the
   "fa.freebsd.bugs" mailing list.

http://www.google.com/groups?q=author:clint%2Bfreebsddotorg%40acm.vt.edu&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&as_drrb=b&as_mind=12&as_minm=5&as_miny=2000&as_maxd=25&as_maxm=3&as_maxy=2004&selm=fa.klgcaav.k0chjm%40ifi.uio.no&rnum=1

   Or, if you prefer a smaller URL: http://tinyurl.com/24lel

3. Spammers mine Usenet news groups for addresses. You must have known that
   already; it's been going on now for a decade. See

   http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2004/03/05/spams_tenth_birthday_today.html

   That it took the spammers two years to mine your address from those
   groups is just short of a miracle. I've had addresses mined in less than
   a day.

4. You chose to use an address variant that's tied closely to your regular
   address. Thus, when the variant address was compromised, you can't
   disable it without also disabling your regular email address. There are
   smarter approaches, including:

   a) Defining throw-away aliases. Useful if you can create email aliases
      at will.
   b) Using a throwaway Hotmail or Yahoo address.

5. There's no evidence that anyone deliberately sold your address to
   spammers. Certainly, it's highly unlikely that anyone officially
   connected with FreeBSD would ever do something like that.

   No one on this mailing list is to blame for your receipt of spam on what
   you erroneously supposed was a private email address. If you must find
   someone to blame, consider these targets:

   a. Yourself. You sent a bug report, and all bug reports are posted to
      the public mailing list "freebsd-bugs".

   b. The spammers. Of course, it's no fun blaming them, because they're
      difficult to find and throttle. But that's no excuse for hurling
      invective at FreeBSD users. That's equivalent to kicking your dog
      because your boss pissed you off.

Please direct your ire in a more appropriate direction.

Brian Clapper, http://www.clapper.org/bmc/
...skill such as yours is evidence of a misspent youth.
        -- Herbert Spencer